AHL: Worcester Sharks' scoring leaders way down on list

Wednesday

Feb 26, 2014 at 11:34 PMFeb 27, 2014 at 12:13 AM

Bill Ballou AHL

So much has gone wrong with the Sharks this season that it is hard to isolate one special fact, one particular deficiency, one glaring shortcoming that has led to their position near the bottom of the AHL standings.

Hard, but not impossible. So, try this one:

With 52 games played in the season, the Sharks' leading scorer is Freddie Hamilton with 29 points. He is 42 points behind the league leader, Travis Morin of Texas, who has 71.

Hamilton is tied for 108th place in the league scoring race.

If you add up Worcester's top three scorers — Hamilton, Dan DaSilva and Daniil Tarasov — Morin's 71 points is only four less than the 75 for the Sharks' top three combined.

The thing is, this is nothing new. As the Sharks head toward a fourth straight spring with no playoff hockey, they do so dealing with a chronic problem — not enough offense — one that their owners in San Jose seem incapable of resolving.

Last year's leading scorer, Bracken Kearns, had 46 points. He finished tied for 53rd overall behind league leader Brandon Pirri of Rockford, who had 75. John McCarthy paced the Worcester offense in 2011-12 with 47 points, tied for 65th in the AHL, which was led by Chris Bourque of Hershey with 93.

In 2009-10, Jonathan Cheechoo had 47 points, tied for 79th in the AHL. Corey Locke of Binghamton led with 86.

The last time a Sharks player cracked even the top 20 was in 2009-10, when defenseman Danny Groulx was 18th with 66 points. No coincidence — that's the last time Worcester made the playoffs.

Raw points totals don't mean much these days. Most really good scorers don't stick around the AHL very long. Imagine how many points Tyler Toffoli would have if he had played the whole season in Manchester.

Comparative points mean a lot, though, and they show that Worcester simply does not have enough offensive talent to compete in today's AHL, and has not for going on four seasons now. That's a long time to not be able to solve a particular problem, and it is going to wind up being the same amount of time since the Sharks last made the Calder Cup playoffs.

Good in goal

Once again, the Sharks assisted on the Player of the Week selection. It is John Albert of St. John's. He was 5-1-6 as the IceCaps took four straight on the road. Albert had three short-handed goals along the way, one less than Worcester has had for the season to date. … The league played the maximum 15 games on Saturday night and home teams won nine of them. … Three games were played in NHL rinks over the weekend, including ones in Montreal, Washington and Philadelphia. The "home" team lost all of them. Hamilton drew 8,771 to the Bell Centre, Adirondack had 17,585 in Philly and Hershey played in front of 15,763 in D.C. … Adirondack lost to Binghamton, 3-2, on Saturday night in a game that featured 16 power plays (yes, Jamie Koharski was one of the referees) but only one power-play goal. … Hershey lost back-to-back games against Syracuse and was outscored, 10-2. The night before playing before the crowd in Washington, the Bears had 10,373 for their game in Hershey. … Brodie Reid has scored five of his eight goals in the third period. … Worcester is one of just three AHL teams to employ only two goaltenders thus far this season. Lake Erie and Rochester are the others. Charlotte has used nine goalies and the list includes Cam Ward, Rick DiPietro and Anton Khudobin. … Bracken Kearns is back from San Jose, but Matt Tennyson has been called up. Rob Davison is expected to back in action tonight. … Mike Hoffman had gone 14-13-27 in 16 games before being called up by Ottawa this week. While it seems as though San Jose is too patient with its minor leaguers sometimes, guys like Hoffman can prove a point. He is a fourth-year pro and is 30-37-67 in 51 games. As a rookie in 2010-11 with the Senators, Hoffman was 7-18-25 and minus-22 in 74 games. … Chicago's Keith Aucoin hit the 600-assist mark last week and is the fifth player to get that many in the AHL. Aucoin got 255 of those assists in Hershey and three of the four players above him — Tim Tookey, Mike Nykoluk and all-time leader Willie Marshall — also had more assists with the Bears than with any other team.

Catching up with…

Two former Sharks players who skated for the UNH Wildcats are in Europe — Matt Fornataro is playing for Vasteras in Sweden and Josh Prudden is with the Destil Trappers in Tilburg, Netherlands. Former Sharks defenseman Will Colbert is on that team, too.

A pair of ex-IceCats defensemen are assistant coaches in the Ontario Hockey League — Mike Van Ryn is with Kitchener and Daniel Tkaczuk with Owen Sound. Former IceCat Derek Armstrong is the head coach of the Denver Cutthroats in the Central Hockey League and one of his defensemen is Aaron MacKenzie, who skated for Worcester in 2003-04 and 2004-05 and will turn 33 in a week.

Race to the bottom

Somebody's losing streak will end tonight in Lewiston when the Sharks play the Pirates. LewisPort has dropped four in a row, Worcester six in a row, although in decidedly different ways. The Sharks have scored four goals in their six defeats. The Pirates have scored 17 in their four losses.

They are two frustrated teams, both losing games they should have won. In their last three losses, the Pirates have blown leads of 3-0, 3-1 and 4-2 and had goals scored at 16:30, 18:27 and 17:31 of the third period.

This is the third time in their history the Sharks have lost at least six in a row. Oddly, their longest losing streak of seven happened during their best season ever, 2009-10.

The longest losing streak in Worcester's AHL history was eight by the IceCats from March 4-19, 1995.

The Sharks are 1-7-0 in their last eight games and there have been some atrocious plus-minus numbers posted individually. They look like this:

Sena Acolatse is minus-9 in six of the games; Konrad Abelthshauser, Lane Scheidl and Eriah Hayes are all minus-8; Dylan DeMelo, Taylor Doherty, Freddie Hamilton and Yanni Gourde are all minus-7; and Rylan Schwartz and Matt Tennyson are both minus-5, Tennyson having played six games.

Worcester's goalies have combined for a 4.27 goals-against average and .858 saves percentage. Troy Grosenick is 3.82 and .883. Harri Sateri is 4.83 and .821.

On this date…

The Sharks came up with a rare rout of the Manchester Monarchs, beating them by 5-2 at the DCU Center in 2011. The first period was scoreless, then Jamie McGinn, T.J. Trevelyan and Nick Schaus all beat Martin Jones — yes, Martin Jones, really — in the second. McGinn had a shorth-handed goal in the third period and Tommy Wingels got the final Worcester goal as Tyson Sexsmith posted his first win of the season in net.